Rogue Columnist

The 2010 thing

2009-12-31T10:41:31-08:00

I've never been big on predictions, much less had the talent to match the trenchant dazzle of Jim Kunstler's annual revel (my favorite line: Unlike the 1930s, we are no longer a nation who call each other 'Mister' and "Ma'am,' where even the down-and-out wear neckties and speak a discernible variant of regular English, where hoboes say 'thank you,' and where, in short, there is something like a common culture of shared values. We're a nation of thugs and louts with flames tattooed on our necks, who call each other 'motherfucker' and are skilled only on playing video games based on mass murder.")

No, history is too filled with contingency to make crystal balls reliable. The conventional wisdom of our experts is perhaps more corrupted and thus worthless than at any time since 1929 or 1914. Our collective inability to see things as they are, rather than as we wish them to be, makes any clear-eyed assessment immediately consigned to the perdition of "doomers" and "he's so negative." We have more "information sources" than ever before, and we are more ignorant. Even so, we can take a spin through the major themes that the new year and decade will bring.

For America: The continued bleeding of multiple wars will continue to be underreported and ignored by most of our fellow citizens, barring a major calamity. And yet it will be an uber-burden that will keep building new matrices of trouble for the nation. One example is how our military is essentially providing cover for China to spend billions extracting Afghanistan's resources for the good of the Chinese economy. The military is the jobs and stimulus program for the United States, but unlike investment in, say, infrastructure and research, it will not repay itself. It is, in Ross Perot's famous locution, the giant sucking sound. We can't pacify tribal "nations" driven by medieval theology (and I'm not talking about Gilbert, Ariz., here). Our efforts will not stop terrorism. Let me go really far out on a limb and say President Obama's "limited" Afghan surge will end up like LBJ circa 1966.

Back home, we will not get high-speed rail or even a better conventional Amtrak, both easily within our grasp, both of which would have the potential to create huge numbers of permanent good jobs. We will not get better healthcare. We will not rebuild American manufacturing, or reconstitute the American middle class, or return to the trajectory of a nation that could fight a misbegotten war, keep a totalitarian empire at bay, build the greatest economy in the history of the world with its fruits shared the widest, fulfill the promise of the Declaration in civil rights acts -- and send men to the moon. We will keep funneling billions of public dollars to the politically connected corporatocracy: the big bankers, insurers, multinationals, etc. We will not use this gift of transition time to prepare for a new world of peak oil and climate change. "Sustainability" will be a word that's so '00. Instead, we will argue over silly things or peer like pitiful voyeurs into the bedrooms of celebrities. Fewer Americans will read. Fewer men will go to college. Television will keep rotting our brains.

The chances of a double-dip recession are good. However, comparisons to the early 1980s are perilous. Back then, American still had the most powerful and diverse economy in the world, and much of the downturn was Paul Volcker's necessary war on inflation. Today, the U.S. economy is heavily dependent on moving around money and sprawl house building. The former adds risk and income inequality while leaving no lasting real productive economy -- indeed, it destroys it by continued mergers and other plays. The latter isn't coming back, whatever "green shoots" the clueless media keep finding each news cycle. Vast amounts of bad debt have still not been unwound. More bad debt is on the way. We're heavily in hock to China and other nations. Average Americans keep slipping further down the slope, but as individuals and families, each conditioned to ignore the real causes and either endure it quietly, or have our cries ignored, or look for the wrong people to blame or empower.

Which brings us to the 2010 elections. I think it will be a good year for the Republicans. Democrats had a chance to deliver immediate, discrete reforms after the 2008 elections that would improve the material condition and optimism of average Americans. They had a chance to take on the financial interests, from the big bankers to the rapacious insurers, that most Americans hate. They failed. So the chances of a continued Democratic hold on Congress are slim. The GOP is a party of insanity, but somehow it might be better able to channel the inchoate rage out there -- Americans have too short an attention span or knowledge of things to realize the Republicans are the party that wrecked America and are even more bought and paid for by the interests. With one or both houses of Congress in GOP hands -- and even gains by Republicans will be decisive, so skillfully have 40 GOP senators stifled the Democrats -- that the last two years of the Obama presidency will be tragic.

In Arizona: Nothing much will change on the surface. Peyton and Joe will continue their games and the Robespierres of the state Republican Party continue to lead ever greater numbers of their own to the guillotine. It will stay hotter longer but the weather will, again, be "odd," helping the climate-change "skeptics." Nothing will be done to meaningfully address water issues, except for the continued throwing down of gravel and cutting of shade trees in the center city, which is of course exactly the worst thing one could do. Terry Goddard might become governor -- Arizona should be so lucky -- but the state's situation can't change for the better until the Kookocracy is decisively defeated in the legislative elections.

Under the surface, the state's tribulations will only become worse. This will be downplayed by the media and ignored by the elite that profit from it and spend the increasingly unpleasant summer months elsewhere. Mexico's increasing path toward becoming a failed state will be more deeply felt across the border and in the largest city nearest that line. The state economy will stay in a depression, both because of dependence on housing and continued failure to engage in real economic development, but also because the state's fiscal calamity will only make things worse. All the crap about "government needs to tighten its belt because families are, too" will continue to be spouted, and continue to produce disastrous results. Arizona and Phoenix's American competitors will at least hold their commanding positions, and world rivals will sprint ahead. Arizona and Phoenix will tread sunshine, thinking they are not really part of this world competition. "Leaders" may bring out new reports to be forgotten. There will be much hyping of the next savor: Superstition Vistas! Williams Gateway! Buckeye! None of it real. Arizona is in decline.

Phoenix's rate of descent will become more clear next year. The crackup of Mayor Phil Gordon is a story that must wait to be told. He will, at best, be remembered as someone who carried through the major projects started by his predecessor, but failed to use his copious opportunities to move the city ahead. Meanwhile, people will line up, or not, to succeed him in 2011. The City Council seems much more fractured and less effective than in the early- and mid-2000s. So the barons of the huge council districts have their "power," none of which addresses the city's monumental trials. It was telling that David Cavazos was picked as city manager. Nice guy, well-meaning, inoffensive, and the least capable of the candidates for the job (all internal candidates in this pathologically inward-looking city). Make no waves. Move across the water quietly.

Developers will continue to hold sway, but not for any discernible public good: the vast tracts of empty, blighted land in the heart of the city will remain. The underclass will grow. Economic assets will continue to move to the beltways. The brain drain will also continue. If the misbegotten South Mountain Freeway is built, it will be heralded as a great civic achievement. The real leapfrog, a crash program to build out the downtown biomedical campus, will not be tackled. The real transportation leapfrog, commuter rail to the west, northwest and southeast valley, as well as trains to Tucson, will be, at best, "studied." Schools and the underclass will continue to be ignored. What could possibly go wrong?

Everywhere we must hunker down for a hard new year. We seem incapable of stepping forward and grasping a realistic and even inspiring future, incapable even of envisioning life any different from the way most Americans now lead it.

Every day is a gift. I wish you all a Happy New Year.

The Maloney Doctrine

2009-12-28T14:18:40-08:00

As the cops say, "thank God for stupid criminals." For whatever reason, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was unable to detonate the powerful plastic explosive strapped to his legs and Detroit was spared the further indignity of being the scene of a new terror attack. If the early reports hold, the explosive was easily detectable by current screening techniques. The suspect was also on terror watch lists in the U.S. and the U.K., but was somehow able to board an airliner.

A cynic would say: After all this crap law-abiding fliers have been through for the past eight years, and all the federal snooping into the lives of American citizens, here's what we get. Ted Kennedy was prevented from flying because his name was on a "no-fly" list, but not Abdulmutallab. Oh, but he dutifully took off his shoes like every other schlub going through the long, long security lines. Some things are remarkable: that the detection gear didn't work, and that with all the computing muscle at its disposal, the feds couldn't get this guy on the right list (despite a warning about the man to American officials from his father, a Nigerian banker). The man also used cash to buy his ticket. Suspicions, anyone? Anyone? Otherwise, the reality is that terror attacks will happen in an open society. We haven't gotten our La-Z-Boy heads around that yet.

It will go hard on the Obama administration, especially Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who is discovering she's not in Arizona any more, coddled by the powerful women of the "sewing circle" and the hagiography of the Arizona Republic. First she said the system worked "like clockwork," now she says it failed. Andrew Sullivan, hardly an enemy of the administration, has called for her resignation, so that the Bush era of unaccountability and incompetence doesn't persist.

It was always a risky fit for the former Arizona governor. I suspect she would have preferred being attorney general, and she would have made a better one than Eric Holder. Homeland Security should require more of a portfolio than being a former U.S. Attorney and the commander of the Arizona National Guard. And if anything goes wrong on your watch -- you're toast. Yes, she's tough as nails, but she's not in Phoenix anymore and this is a whole new, much more brutal game. In the end, she is the responsible government official for the screw ups already discovered. The Obama administration has been in office nearly a year. So it should be accountable. Just as George W. Bush is accountable for the 9/11 attacks that occurred early in his presidency -- despite GOP history rewriting that they somehow happened while Clinton was canoodling "that woman...Miss Lewinsky."

I've never been comfortable with the crypto-fascist name "Homeland Security." The very phrase leaves an un-American taste. It connotes -- and the reporting done in recent years bears this out -- even more intrusion into the lives of Americans. This atop the national security state initiated by Harry Truman and added to continually through the Cold War. And atop the mountain of laws that circumscribe everything from smoking to using seat belts. Just what one would have expected from a "conservative" administration: yet another cabinet department. And of course it is continued, name and all, during the Bush-lite era of Barack Obama. The management challenge was to get the copious law enforcement and intelligence agencies already in existence to do their jobs -- not to rearrange them in yet another department, larded with still more bureaucracy. And our ports, to name but one area, are still not secure.

Meanwhile, we're not willing or able to do the things that would cut the legs out from the terrorists' ability to continue recruiting angry, gullible young men. (And what exactly is the appeal of 72 virgins in heaven, anyway: "No, that's yucky...no, not tonight...ow, that hurts...I don't wanna...get your nasty thingie away from me!"). These would include forcing Israel to make a just settlement with the Palestinians; withdrawing our troops from all Muslim nations; getting off imported oil and distancing ourselves from the corrupt (and terror-spawning), repressive Saudi regime as well as other Arab dictators, and finding jobs for all these aimless young men. This, of course, would have to be combined with stealthy, lethal special ops, much more effective security of Western targets, etc. Taken together, these measures would be a better bargain. But we won't do it. Or we can't do it.

Now the administration, in terror like all Democrats of being seen as weak, will overreact. We will continue the Maloney Doctrine. I name this after my fourth grade teacher, who in retrospect I see as a very sad, angry woman ill-suited to be teaching at that demanding level. Whenever one kid would do something wrong, she would ensure that the entire class was punished. Christopher Hitchens riffs on this in Slate, adding: "What nobody in authority thinks us grown-up enough to be told is this: We had better get used to being the civilians who are under a relentless and planned assault from the pledged supporters of a wicked theocratic ideology."

Indeed, but La-Z-Boy America will put up with the Maloney Doctrine. This is not the America that fought the Nazis, the Empire of Japan and held off the Soviet Union until it collapsed -- all the while without making the "homeland" ever more into a police state. We like being told what to do -- unless, of course, it means real sacrifice, such as war taxes and a draft.

The dust bowl

2009-12-24T11:22:05-08:00

Tuesday's hellish pileup on Interstate 10 near Casa Grande involved nine tractor-trailer rigs, 13 automobiles, killed three and injured 14. Add this to the hidden budget of Arizona -- it's not the one Jan and the Kooks are relentlessly cutting or that the nut-baggers obsess about being a sign of "SOCIALISM."

Severe dust storms are a part of the eco-system of the Gila River valley and basin. They've been made more severe by generations of pumping out ground water in Pinal and northern Pima counties, killing off many desert plants that might otherwise retard the dust. None of this is new. When I-10 was built in the 1970s, federal and state transportation planners failed to account for it. At one point, lighted signs were erected to warn of windstorms. But no provision was made for drivers to be able to safely pull off the road. Remarkably, no rest area exists between Casa Grande and Marana -- the danger zone -- that could allow cars and trucks to find safety.

This didn't matter as much in the 1970s, when the two-lanes-each-way rural interstate was planned for a state with less than 2 million people. It was lightly traveled. Even so, it was built with the usual lack of foresight (unless there's a quick profit for politically connected developers). Two lanes? The Interstate between Dayton and Cincinnati was built with three each way, and this was serving comparable metro areas as Phoenix and Tucson in the 1970s. But not in Arizona.

More remarkable still, the rural I-10 remains largely in place, even though it now funnels traffic between one large metro area and one of the most populous in the nation (state population tripled). The highway has seen development added along the way, especially the horrid sprawl outside Casa Grande. Driving to Tucson now much of the time is torture, stuck in congestion all the way -- with Arizona's road warriors doing 85 (and these are the responsible drivers).

All this time, as the Real Estate Industrial Complex profited hugely from "growth," the same rural Interstate remained, with minimal improvements, especially for safety. (The same is true between Phoenix and Flagstaff). Meanwhile, the highly touted "Sun Corridor" of Phoenix and Tucson (or does it go all the way to Prescott?) is by far the largest metroplex in the nation without a passenger rail connection to relieve some of the congestion. Even Albuquerque has commuter rail. Even conservative Dallas-Fort Worth and Nashville have it. When I was a kid, three trains a day each way went between Phoenix and Tucson; now, none.

Well, you got your tax cut.

If sometimes people die needlessly, so be it. As the media obsess or ignore the budget cutting down at the Capitol, nobody discusses the hidden budget. It contains all the unpaid public costs of huge population growth, unplanned development, leapfrog and wildcat subdivisions, as well as the attendant environmental and social costs, as well as the opportunity costs of the failure to build a high-quality economy. It's a huge budget, growing ever larger with the compound interest of neglect, toxic ideology and kicking the can into the next generation. Profits were privatized. Costs continue to the socialized. There's your socialism, Arizona-style -- and it has a body count.

Decade of delusion

2009-12-21T12:16:15-08:00

The Information Center formerly known as the Arizona Republic prominently offers up a breezy feature on how the decade now ending "upturned our touchstones, left us suspended in a mixed-up, flip-flopped, name-swapping, upside-down place." Why, even the FBR Open (the huh?) is now sponsored by Waste Management. The feature quotes, yet again, Elliott Pollack and, yet again, declines to mention that he makes his money as a developer, as well as an economist in the service of developers. " 'Every place we were strong,' he says, such as commercial real estate and the semiconductor industry, has crumbled.... Waste management, indeed." So much for what Jacques Brel would term, "Cute, cute, cute, in a stupid ass way."

As someone who was in the heart of the battle in Arizona for most of the decade, I would describe it in more sober terms, for it represents lost opportunities that the state, and particularly the city of Phoenix, may never get again. Call it the Decade of Delusion. Admittedly a strong term for a place built on a history of boosterism, glasses half full and always, like the Roadrunner, seeming to escape disaster at the last second. Those escapes, in reality, were opportunities tossed aside and hard choices pushed into a future that has now arrived. They were decades spent devouring and profaning the last best place, arriving in 2000 with one more chance to get it right. Instead, delusion prevailed. Now state and city are Wile E. Coyote, standing on air, still not realizing it's a long way down.

I arrived back in Arizona literally just in time to attend a debate between Sandy Bahr of the Sierra Club and real-estate lawyer Grady Gammage over Prop 202. It was September of 2000 and the initiative, which would have placed limits on sprawl and leapfrog development, was leading in polls. What happened next was a remarkable turnaround, as the real-estate interests mustered a well-funded scare campaign against 202. I recall Pollack saying the state would collapse into recession if the measure passed. That was my first red flag: 202 was hardly radical, indeed could have been criticized for not going far enough. It would have made infill profitable and left huge swaths to develop elsewhere. But if its passage meant recession, here was a state too dependent on one sector, despite all the boosterism about Arizona's "vibrant, diverse" economy. Prop 202 was crushed. The land barons set about platting everything from Yavapai County to beyond Tucson. The Decade of Delusion had begun.

The 202 defeat was instructive as to where power really lay. I wrote two open-minded columns examining the pluses and minuses of the measure -- and back in those days, I was much more naive about the intentions and "achievements" of the Growth Machine. The abuse I took, combined with the bully tactics and massive spending used to defeat the preservationists, began cracking all my illusions about my home state. I coined the term Real Estate Industrial Complex to define the community of powerful economic interests grounded in one strategy: sprawl. It was threatened by any other strategy, even those that would have complemented it or helped sustain it.

Phoenix became America's last and largest factory town, churning out huge "master planned communities," malls, shopping strips, spec offices and tilt-up warehouses. Its business model was dependent on a huge workforce of illegal aliens and cities scrapping for minimal development fees and sales taxes. Freeways, flood control and other government subsidies made distant desert land profitable, as business, tax dollars and affluent residents were sucked out of the central core and older neighborhoods. "Growth pays for itself," we were told. In fact, it was a Ponzi scheme, dependent on 120,000 newcomers a year. The welfare of people actually living in the state was always secondary to the people who would come, and those who would profit from them.

It was, we now know, part of a huge national Ponzi scheme of easy credit from the Fed, borrowing from China, subprime and derivative swindles and sprawl development as America's last major industry that hadn't been offshored. But in Phoenix it was taken to mammoth extremes. "Where do the people who live in all those new houses work?" I was asked over and over. It was a good question. Mostly they worked in the sectors dependent on adding population: retail, house building and improvement, real estate, mortgages, etc.

While civic boosters bragged about "growth," the facts simply weren't on their side once one got beyond raw population increases or housing starts. The tech sector was in decline, still clinging to semiconductor production that had little future in America. The major leader companies had all been lost in the 1990s and no new ones replaced them. "Bagging" back-office jobs from USAA was presented as a routine coup for Phoenix, when in reality it was a one-off. Eco-devo types finally had to concede that incomes were lagging -- had been since the 1980s -- while Phoenix had many more low-wage jobs than comparable metros. The facts showed that the cluster strategy of the 1990s had failed, due to neglect. Other states got major economic assets; we got Ted Williams' head. The largest employer: Wal-Mart. "People will come here no matter what," we were told. But if one had the temerity to suggest raising taxes to pay for all the urban solutions such a populous place needed, we were scolded: "It will kill growth!" So the decade went by, to the sounds of nail guns and the musical Spanish conversations of the framing crews. Every nail was setting up the Depression that would fall like a collapsing house, but few imagined it was possible. "Growth" was salvation. Being first or second among "fastest-growing" metros or "boomburbs" trumped any other measure -- even though the state had not even caught up with the huge costs of a 40 percent population increase in the 1990s.

The election of Janet Napolitano seemed to mark a new day. In reality, she had barely won, thanks to a weak opponent and the sudden swoon of the economy (even with the defeat of Prop 202). In fact, as I have written before, Napolitano never took on the Real Estate Industrial Complex, water or taxes. She played defense against Legislators who would be sick comic characters in fiction, but were poison in reality. Then she left for Washington, probably at just the right moment to preserve a misty good memory. Her replacement, a Mechamite Republican, ended up having to play adult and reign in the worst excesses of her party.

Yet some good things seemed to be happening. Light rail was built over vicious opposition (mostly from the exurbs); TGen was won and it was to anchor a vibrant biosciences campus; ASU got an energetic new president and established a downtown Phoenix campus, and the convention center arose larger and stunning. Lavish renderings promised a new skyline. Roosevelt Row might actually become a row. After all, Phoenix had become America's fifth largest city! Alas, it was mostly not to be. Central Phoenix sagged, despite heroic efforts of individuals, as businesses left for cheaper new buildings on the beltways. The core showed how little actual new business, not connected with "growth," was coming to Arizona -- how little of the real productive investment, assets and employment that should be the precursor to real estate development was there. Linear slums proliferated all over the metro area, along with blighted empty lots and abandoned big box stores. Mesa continued to act like a small town. Tempe continued to screw up Mill Avenue. Meanwhile, the once-promising Mayor Phil Gordon joined the delusional, as inward-looking Phoenix reached out to...Dubai. In the Asian century, in a city that so desperately needs trade, high-wage jobs and foreign direct investment, when even businesses in LA could be easy pickings...Dubai?

Sheryl Sculley went on to better things, leaving the boys at City Hall feeling more secure. The legendary Alan Brunacini retired as Phoenix Fire Chief. City Manager Frank Fairbanks also finally retired, reportedly murmuring, "Après moi le gravel." ASU's Michael Crow built an empire, including the Biodesign Institute, with a strong hand. His early savior-like status has given way to many enemies, if mostly soto voce. Jerry Colangelo, who did so much for Phoenix and downtown, got tired and went into exurban real-estate development. The great John J. Rhodes, Sam Goddard and John F. Long passed over.

This was the decade when state and city had the means and, thanks to a few leaders, the clear articulation of the urgency to act. To improve every school, for some child will attend your worst performing public school, so it had better be pretty damned good. To build public transportation to support such a huge metro area and implement commuter rail between Phoenix and Tucson. To race ahead with the "meds and eds" strategy to establish a wide-ranging biomedical economy. To execute an economic development strategy that goes beyond "cheap" and "sunny." To begin to conserve the wild, improve air quality and, finally, get serious about water. All these initiatives were possible, and got jolting emphasis in everything from the latest competitiveness report to scary interruptions of gasoline and power in High Summer.

But not in the Decade of Delusion.

Arizona was "business friendly" with its low taxes and light regulation. Of course the congressional delegation shouldn't bring home "pork" (even though it had built what infrastructure the state depended upon). And the decade passed to the sound of reactionary legislation and rhetoric at the Capitol. It turned out that Arizona was not friendly to leading edge, high-wage industries that value an educated workforce, strong research and university infrastructure, tolerance and diversity. It can't even compete against Southern states that aggressively court business. On almost every measure of social and economic well-being, Arizona ranked poorly. Arizona ended the decade with the narrowest economy in memory -- and for the first time was not growing, even if more slowly, during a national downturn. It was at dead stop. It ended with a huge underclass and no way of bringing it into the mainstream -- or a clue as to why it must do so. The "conservative" purists, like the developers, had been shown for the delusional liars that they are.

All that was left was to ramp up the vicious war against the working poor, in the guise of "what part of illegal don't you understand!!?!" The sheriff made his sweeps. The angry old white people rooted for him. "Conservative" nihilism has found even more fertile ground in a Depression as they have now turned on each other, still oblivious to the huge challenges facing state and city, and the enormous cost of this lost decade. Arizonans who retired there or play at a faux "resort lifestyle" just wanted to be left alone. But the world would not leave them alone, and it is changing ever faster now. The decade ends to the somber sound of desperate dinner-table conversations and the wind passing through rotting, unfinished exurban houses and the ghosts of the Hohokam reminding us, "the desert will reclaim its own, repay its despoilers."

The decade ends with the 50th anniversary of the Phoenix Art Museum. We pretty much grew up together. The museum's early years were modest indeed and it seemed destined to be an afterthought to the Heard, especially in a go-go town where the old stewards were dying off. But it has been built into a distinguished institution, a gem of the city, especially through the tireless work of my friend, Director Jim Ballinger. It shows individuals do matter. No fate is preordained. Place and pride matter. Phoenix still matters and is worth fighting for.

Phoenix and Seattle

2009-12-17T16:25:59-08:00

It's been more than two years since I left Phoenix for Seattle and readers have repeatedly asked me to compare and contrast the two. I've hesitated because they are not merely different places but different planets.

As a columnist for the Arizona Republic, I used Seattle as a yardstick for Phoenix in a pair of articles. They were about the same size metro areas, and in 1960, same size cities. Both were weather challenged. Both had sat in the shadows of bigger cities (LA for Phoenix, San Francisco for Seattle). In 1960, Seattle was heavily dependent on Boeing and otherwise held a number of declining industries, as well as a history of labor problems. Phoenix was rich with newly recruited tech companies and a fresh slate. Which city would you have bet on? Of course, Seattle turned out to be a world city and Phoenix a massive real-estate scheme. The second column attempted to explain some of Seattle's strengths that could be nurtured to help Phoenix (yeah, I was the one who was always gloomy, never offering solutions). These columns went into the dustbin of all such writing about Arizona and, as teaching tools, they were also very naive.

In reality, Seattle had so many strengths Phoenix never had or developed. This is why a real compare-and-contrast may be of limited value, as well as being seen as more Phoenix bashing.

Seattle developed as a city earlier than Phoenix, benefiting not only from a vibrant economy, the Klondike Gold Rush and skilled population, but also from the golden age of civic design and architecture. It was proud enough of itself to host the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition of 1909, which became the campus of the University of Washington. Today the UW is one of the finest public universities in the nation. In 1962, Seattle held the World's Fair, building the iconic Space Needle and monorail. Phoenix has never done a world's fair.

Despite having a history of booms and busts, today Seattle has one of most diverse and powerful metro economies in the nation. It is the home to major headquarters. It has mastered the art of reinvention and is a world magnet for talent, capital and trade. Along with world-class hospitals, it is one of America's top biosciences centers. In other words, it's a very ambitious, smart and outward-looking city compared with Phoenix. Seattle punches well above its weight class. And it was lucky in having people such as Bill Boeing and Bill Gates place their companies here. One result is that it is much richer (per-capita income $30,306 vs. $19,833).

As a physical setting, Seattle is a real city. I live downtown, with the retail core just three blocks away. Pike Place Market is in walking distance. The energy is amazing, even with the toll of the recession. Every city neighborhood is distinct in history and vibe, and has its own shopping district with unique local retailers and buildings right up to the sidewalk. There's the fascinating International District. There's quirky Fremont and pleasantly affluent Magnolia and many more. All are walkable and cohesive. Public spaces are abundant. Downtown boasts major businesses and retailers, along with distinct local shops -- not just government and law offices, as in Phoenix. Century-old masterpieces sit side-by-side with the ultra-modern buildings. Mixed-use and historic preservation are abundant (but never enough for many urbanites). The tear-downs and huge vacant lots of central Phoenix would be unthinkable here. The city's parks are gems, some laid out by the Olmstead brothers. Mount Rainier, the Olympic Mountains, Elliott Bay, Lake Washington and Lake Union preside beautifully over the urban life. The city of Seattle is compact (582,000 people in 83 square miles). Phoenix, of course, is the nation's fifth most populous city, with 1.5 million in 500 square miles. Yet Seattle feels like the big city.

Phoenix was a farm town when Seattle was first booming as a city. Aside from a small area around downtown, Phoenix got the worst of the dehumanizing sprawl of the auto age. Despite the efforts of two generations of leaders in attracting what were then leading-edge companies, Phoenix after around 1980 was lulled by the seeming effortless levitation called "growth." It only became more dependent on people moving there, attracted by sunshine, inexpensive housing and what was once a magical Salt River Valley and the nearness of beautiful wilderness. One happy circumstance of this moment of history, where cheap land, cheap gas, federal water and air conditioning came together was that Phoenix never experienced a real bust -- until now. The downsides are everywhere, of course, from a narrow economy and bad air to people disconnected from civic life behind their gates and inside "master planned communities."

Seattle's people are very different. They're nice, for one thing. I have yet to get a death threat over a column. They're smart, among the most literate in America, supporting many local bookstores tucked into the neighborhoods and downtown. They love their city and give to it lavishly. Most Anglos in Phoenix want to be left alone in the sunshine, living a "resort lifestyle," with low taxes and minimal or no civic burdens. This makes it even harder on the Phoenicians who fight so hard to make it a better place. Meanwhile, the huge Latino underclass (and there's a big Anglo one, too) is shut out of the mainstream and without many economic opportunities.

Seattle is the home of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whose new headquarters is going up in the center city. But the sense of stewardship extends out to a galaxy of non-profits and arts organizations. The Seattle Symphony, Intiman Theater and Seattle Opera are some of the best in the country. Every neighborhood seems to have its own indy movie theater. Seattle supports three NPR stations. It has an all-jazz and an all-classical radio station. Phoenix has struggled to build the arts, and although two organizations, the Heard Museum and Phoenix Art Museum, are internationally noteworthy, all fight for their lives. The largest Phoenix non-profit wouldn't be caught dead putting its headquarters downtown (you know, near those people). When I arrived here, it was a joy to get both the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the doorstep every morning. The PI has gone online since, but the city is blessed with scrappy independent media, including The Stranger and Crosscut blog, as well as the (New Times) Village Voice-owned Seattle Weekly. Phoenix, alas, lacks much media diversity, much less media that holds power accountable, and talk radio only reinforces the extreme-right ethos.

All this points to very different values. Seattle residents are "liberal," in that they are very interested in the "we" part of the social compact and in building and enhancing a city. Another element is vigorous public engagement. It's hard not to find a protest going on somewhere downtown, from the pro-Palestinian and anti-war activists to hell-fire warning Christians. You would never find this in Phoenix on a regular basis. In Phoenix, and especially the suburbs, the "conservative," tribal, exclusionary impulse is supreme. Crime is lower here and in the metro area, making horrific acts such as the killing of a police officer last month hit all the harder. The people who live in the city have city values, and do fine with the diversity, street people and "density." Phoenicians have suburban values. Seattle's metro area has all the suburban crap that Phoenix does, so it's not like Phoenix can say, "We have malls and parking lots!" Yet Seattle offers many more real suburban choices, including Bellevue, whose skyline is more impressive than downtown Phoenix, as well as real towns with lovely centers. There is less Balkanization here, although the competition between city and suburbs is real and always in danger of going destructive. But metro Seattle has avoided Phoenix's cannibalization.

To my mind, Seattle is blessed with mostly narrow streets and even freeways. This has helped limit sprawl and place an honest congestion "tax" on those who choose to live in the 'burbs (whose costs and destructiveness are otherwise cloaked or not counted -- indeed have been subsidized in America). It has preserved neighborhoods and natural beauty. If you choose to live in the suburbs, your drive will probably be more difficult than in Phoenix (although I have spent many a lifetime stuck in East Valley freeway traffic). Phoenix's wide streets and freeways are built for cars, not people. The result is ugliness and lack of walkability and neighborhood cohesion. But most Phoenicians would have a hard time even conceiving of a different way of arranging their lives. Phoenix beat Seattle by a few months to light rail. Despite its path-breaking monorail, Seattle has shot itself in the foot many times on rail transit. It is finally getting its act together. Still, it has a magnificent bus system (I don't have to pay riding downtown), Sounder commuter rail, a streetcar with more to come, as well as Amtrak and Cascades intercity rail. All this is lacking in Phoenix. You don't have to drive in Seattle, and many people don't. If they need a vehicle, they rent a Zipcar.

Seattle is a city with many old cultural and political grudges that I learn afresh every week. It still laments voting down a grand city plan in the early 20th century. It looks on Paul Allen's massive investment in the South Lake Union district with suspicion, while most cities would kill to have a wealthy steward building the city core rather than crapola subdivisions on the fringes. Phoenicians usually don't stay around long enough to engage in such introspection or debate. And the power rests in one place: The Real Estate Industrial Complex. Seattle has many nodes of power, having just elected a dissenter as mayor, a former head of the -- gasp! -- Sierra Club. Both cities can be a little socially challenging to the non young-and-beautiful -- Seattle from its Nordic restraint, Phoenix from its sprawl and constant turnover of people.

Phoenix has Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. I'm not sure those assets really help the city itself, but they are undeniably attractive to a certain kind of person.

So that's about it. I'm sure I'll think of more once this is posted. Seattle is home now, although my Phoenix will always be a home of the heart. Seattle has as good a future in the Great Disruption as any American city. If Phoenix continues on its path, it will face a slow, or sudden, decline.

Why do I write this blog? First, because so many thousands of Arizona readers followed me from the Info Center to Rogue Columnist. Second, I don't see any other voices dissecting the issues that Rogue addresses. Third, Phoenix does matter, because of its size -- and consequent danger to the nation when the roof falls in -- its amazing acts of self-destruction and political theater, and the important history and lessons it holds. When there's nothing more to say or I get tired, I'll stop.

As for Seattle's weather: Because I don't want four million people moving here "for the weather," I'll just say: It rains all the time and you'll freeze your ass off.

McCain Agonistes

2009-12-14T11:53:20-08:00

Am I the only one who notices how radio news reports -- even on NPR -- on everything from health care to the budget always seem to lead with sound cuts from Republican opponents. They get the time to spout a talking point, then the announcer moves on to the next story. We're left to wonder why these bills that have passed garnered any support. Considering how bought-and-paid-for the Democratic Party is by corporate interests, I find this odd. What are the corporate media afraid of? In any event, when the roles are reversed, and the Democrats are reduced to theoretical powerlessness in the Congress, we will not hear their voices. We will still hear Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and, of course, the wealthy Republican presidential standard bearer John Sidney McCain III.

Even Tiger Woods' numerous paramours had more sense than the media do over their darling, the senior senator "from Arizona." Lately many stories have swooned over McCain "finding his voice again," "leading the opposition to health care legislation," etc. An only slightly more balanced report came today from the New York Times. I hear McCain on CSPAN and he sounds like a bitter old man. The media hear him and angels sing. Old fighter pilots never die, they still get the girls (and guys). That's the best explanation I can muster.

McCain is against everything. Like his party, he sees nothing wrong with the health care system. The GOP platform on the uninsured and underinsured seems to be: tough luck. He rails against deficit spending, even though the wars and private contractor deals approved by his party and its president are by far the largest component of the deficit. He opposes any stimulus beyond further tax cuts. The media let the Republicans get away with all this without ever scrutinizing their positions, lack of ideas and dire consequences from their obstructionism. He's mad at his slavish little buddy Lindsey Graham for having the temerity to try to do anything about climate change.

"There are few glimpses of the winks, wry smiles and one-liners that were once an integral part of his character," the Times laments. Why, McCain was once in favor of climate-change legislation, immigration reform, etc., before changing his position. They note that he faces a primary challenge from J.D. Hayworth, which is forcing their hero to tack hard to the right. Maybe. McCain has always been erratic, impulsive, driven by rage and most of all, an opportunist. His backtrack on opposing Bush administration torture was a classic McCain move. If the one member of the Senate who was actually tortured in wartime can't stick to his principles on this issue -- well, you have John McCain.

You had the real John McCain in his decision to place the callow, aggressively ignorant rookie governor of Alaska on his ticket, a heartbeat away from a 73-year-old man with a battered body. She may yet go further than her "mentor." If this man were president, things might go so far south we would finally get the reform necessary to save the country. Instead, he gets to rail safely from his seat in the Senate.

In truth, well-placed members of the media got the "winks, wry smiles and one-liners." Most others got the angry man, now turning into an angry old man -- especially his constituents in Arizona. The Grand Canyon State was merely where McCain landed through his fortunate second marriage, a platform for his ambition to return to D.C. He has done little-to-nothing for a state that remains heavily dependent on federal spending (and at a time when other conservative senators happily helped steer advanced federal research dollars to, say, Texas). He has no record of legislative accomplishment beyond an unworkable campaign-finance bill. So toxic is his relationship to other senators, that his opposition to the Phoenix light-rail system was actually a plus. He seems oblivious to Arizona's monumental challenges or issues, unlike Jon Kyle, who speaks Kook to keep his seat, but actually has a clue.

I continue to believe that Arizonans won't get a clue until they get what I call The Full Kook -- where the extreme right Kookocracy is able to implement all its cherished policies. No governor to play the adult and be blamed for preventing "conservatism." Never mind that even to the degree that this ideology has been followed it has placed the state in its dire mess. Never mind that it's detached from reality in the needs of governing a complex urbanized society -- it's even even detached from Goldwater or Reagan. (Any solutions are "leftist" or "SOCIALISM"). Never mind all that. I want the Full Kook. All the way. And then maybe, maybe, enough Arizonans would wake up and vote the rascals out, especially of the powerful Legislature.

As for the senate election, I understand St. Janet has said she won't run. That's probably wise. Her moment in Arizona has passed. For my part, I'll support Hayworth, even though I'm not sure he can get enough of McCain's base of bitter, frightened, bigoted, old white people. In inimitable J.D.-style, he told the Times, “Do we want to send John McCain back to the United States Senate again, or is it time to change to a clear, consistent, common-sense Republican?” Well, Hayworth will be clear and consistent (the Full Kook). And he won't get the undying love of the media from which, ironically, he sprang.

On the other hand, the Democrats have made such a hash of things, been such cowards and even inept tacticians. The unemployment situation in the country and pockets of outright depression are causing a volatile and highly unpredictable environment. The president's seeming sell-out to the lords of finance and big health care has taken away his magic and will cause a backlash from both liberals and moderates. In 2010 we could see Sen. Hayworth as part of a Republican takeover of Congress -- good lord, if the GOP can be so powerful having been relegated to 40 seats, imagine if the party just gained a few more? Then in 2012, President-elect Huckabee, Romney or...Sarah Palin. John McCain just keeps on giving.

Phoenix in December

2009-12-10T14:19:34-08:00

I made a quick trip back home to speak at the Arizona Library Association annual conference. Sorry to all the friends I couldn't see, but beyond the speech I wanted to drive around and see the city, especially to gather material for the next Mapstone mystery, South Phoenix Rules. Some non-literary observations:

-- The gigantic rental car facility is one of those head-shakers. It's so big that I suppose it could become the terminal for the much smaller city that Phoenix may become because of the Great Disruption. In any event, how much did this monster cost and why wasn't that money put into a speed-up of the people-mover to connect with light rail? It's the usual backward thinking and spending, assuming the future will be based on single-occupancy car trips. The "landscaping" and "public art" out front are hideous. Saguaros baking in tightly packed gravel is totally ahistorical for the oasis city that was Phoenix, not a natural look for the Sonoran Desert and plain cayo-ugly. Nice job, Frank.

-- Christmas is always magical in Phoenix. As a child, I watched snowy Midwestern holiday scenes on television, but I knew the first Christmas came in the desert. This was especially enchanting with a rainstorm swirling, making the transplanted Midwesterners complain. I let it fall on me as I walked to the hotel next to the Willo district, feeling centered to be in the old 'hood. The rain is so precious, especially in this drought. Has it occurred to anyone that what makes the Sonoran Desert special, so rich in its plant and animal life, is its relatively high rainfall. A few decades like this and it will become more like the Mojave and Chihuahua deserts -- bleak and bereft. But you "won't have to shovel sunshine."

-- The signs of depression are everywhere. It's especially jarring coming from Seattle, which is struggling with some problems but remains remarkably vibrant by comparison. The "available" signs seem to outnumber the signs of businesses actually still operating. In the center city, the blighted empty lots keep growing. This is probably old news, but I noticed that the old A.J. Bayless shopping center at Indian School and Central has been bulldozed. With it, one of the best art stores anywhere has apparently left the Central Corridor. Steele Indian School Park remains a disappointment, surrounded by wastelands. Where is the tax on land banking? But the problems are everywhere: the rotting frames of failed subdivisions on the fringes, the empty lots in 50-year-old neighborhoods that have always been empty and probably always will be.

-- The deadness of the place is reinforced knowing how much the financial panic, real-estate crash and reset is working against Phoenix. The old Growth Machine model is simply not coming back, and yet Phoenix has no other card to play. It was amusing to see the story about the House GOP spending $65,000 to hire "noted economic and real estate expert" Elliott Pollack to make recommendations about how to fix the state. I can save them the scratch: cut taxes, eliminate the departments of environmental protection and water quality, relax development rules, cut education funding, privatize or close two of the state's three universities, eliminate state revenue sharing with the city of Phoenix. Blah, blah, blah. Pollack, who is a pleasant fellow, was an economist but is also a developer. For years he stumped every venue championing the very dependence on real estate that caused this catastrophe. And he's still going strong. (WHY won't the Info Center identify Pollack as a developer??).

-- Peyton and Joe stamp and shout, running their own little Jacobin Club to behead their political opponents, bringing ludicrous indictments against Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox. It's not to say there's not back-scratching going on, but this is a case of Mr. Pot, meet Ms. Kettle. And these would at best be misdemeanors. Are the two lawmen going after the lethal gun running that is fueling bloodshed in Mexico? Nope. Are they investigating the truly smarmy connections between legislators and various for-profit ventures, including charter schools, prisons and developers seeking to get around water rules? That would be no.

-- I dropped by La Perla, one of the historic gems in Glendale. Invited myself into a conversation with a group in the adjoining pink banquet. They were all natives, in their 70s and above probably, and I could have sat for hours listening to the stories of the old days as they -- Anglo and Latino -- effortlessly switched between English and Spanish. "Where did you go to school?" they demanded. I said, Kenilworth. "Oh, you were a rich kid!" Me: "No, but I went to school with some" The cheese crisp was exquisite. The company better. That night I went to Sing High downtown, another old-timer's joint -- sweet. Tom's Tavern is marking its 80th year. This storied place was where deals were cut and legislation drawn up for decades, a haunt of every important Phoenician. Stop by and thank Mike Ratner for keeping it going.

-- The library convention was held at Westgate, a sprawl abortion, a monumental waste of resources. Imagine if the stadium were downtown? The place was so dead that the traffic lights were set to blink red. It's connected to nothing, distinguished by nothing beautiful, uplifting or real. It must be hot as hell in the summer. Scaled at a level that will face a very unkind future. Somebody got rich, aided by taxpayer dollars. I could hear the jets taking off from Luke, and feel the developer tools lusting to shut the base down.

-- Drive down 59th Avenue to Lower Buckeye and you can snatch a glimpse of the past: cultivated fields shining green with the Estrellas towering behind them. You have to shut out the distant homely new subdivision, but it's a sight worth seeing. Alas, nothing can really recreate the old citrus groves, much less the Japanese Gardens, lost to endless schlock building on Baseline.

-- Back downtown, the biosciences campus looks much as it did when I left town in 2007. The wasted time is tragic. It should have been built out by now with a hospital, larger medical school, more research outfits, the pharmacy school, etc., etc. The future of innovation and sustainability will come from these kinds of dense nodes of smart people, working side-by-side. It's already happening in the top tech centers worldwide. China is leaping ahead. San Francisco built out most of the Mission Bay campus in the time Phoenix was sitting in the headlights. Meanwhile, Mayor Phil defends Dubai and wants to be cleared of any wrongdoing with a girlfriend. I read he was having a "coffee" on the bio campus. Good God. Elsewhere, it was disheartening to see more gravel and half-hearted desert landscaping. The loss of the oasis by the Viad Tower is criminal. This is not historical to central Phoenix, and lack of shade trees and grass is only increasing temperatures and decreasing livability. Good stuff: the green park by ASU is looking better and light rail continues to thrive (we built it, you bastards).

-- Union Station still stands in beautiful and neglected isolation. Phoenix remains by far the most populous American city with no intercity train service whatsoever. Some want to study commuter rail that should have been put in place decades ago. When they finally tear Union Station down, it will be a sign not to come back any more.

Turning and turning

2009-12-07T11:26:00-08:00

We are told repeatedly by our rulers in business, politics and the media that the big hurdle to addressing climate change and health care is cost. Somehow war without end, the global effects of climate change and the towering costs of health care even as more Americans do without it are "free." And so it goes.

This is how we live now. There was indeed one conservative in last fall's presidential election and he now sits in the White House. Barack Obama fits the Burkean mold of slow change, respectful of tradition and custom, seeking to preserve the best of existing arrangements. Unfortunately, thirty years of right-wing revolution (represented by Mr. Obama's opponent, the wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III) have driven these laudable benchmarks so far to the extreme that Mr. Obama's innate restraint is exactly the wrong temperament for this pivotal moment in history.

On health care, one wonders if his heart was ever in it. This has been a colossal failure of the Democratic Party. The New Deal was not the product of a single, 2,000-plus page bill, but of scores of pieces of legislation over years. It delivered nearly instant relief to the nation's suffering, in both substance and confidence-building, helping to ensure continued Democratic majorities to keep it going. Under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, we have a massive dog's breakfast that will come to no good, and be undone by the Republicans because its good elements will take too long to kick in. Why, for example, not one bill that outlawed the savage practice of denying insurance based on pre-existing conditions, or charging outlandish premiums for it -- and having it implemented the moment the president signed the legislation? Another could have instantly required pharmaceutical companies to bid for Medicare drugs, lowering costs at the stroke of a pen. Yet another would have eliminated antitrust protections for the big insurers. And another still would have been a public option, if not Medicare for all -- and let the filibuster happen and its instigators pay the fearsome price in the next election.

Instead, we have a huge encyclopedia of a bill dripping with sinister self-interest for big insurance and big pharma -- to essentially get huge taxpayer subsidies while continuing their lethally obscene business model. It does produce the profits to buy a Congress.

This should be no surprise. The bailout of Wall Street spent potentially trillions of dollars to protect most of the very players that brought on the crash, demanding no reforms on their part. The actual stimulus part of the so-called stimulus bill went to "shovel ready" projects that are conveniently profitable for the politically powerful driving-sprawl industries (same with "cash for clunkers" and the first-time house-buyer tax credit). And the illogical, doomed Afghanistan escalation just happens to be very good business for one of America's last productive major homegrown industries: defense contractors. It turns out we do indeed have a jobs program, an economic stimulus and an industrial policy: war.

Those hoping for a genuine break with the destructive, unsustainable policies of the past are the road kill of this season of discontent. The Great Panic of last fall was arrested too soon to shatter the hold on power of the old order. It doesn't even have to be the result of a quiet coup or a shadow government. It can merely be the result, as in Arizona, of a community of interests united in their opposition to anything that seems to threaten their profits and power. Thus, the biggest single effort that would have created permanent good jobs and industries -- building high-speed rail, enhancing and providing a permanent revenue stream for Amtrak, and building and providing permanent funding for transit -- simply will not happen in America. We'll study it: a windfall to still another group of political contributors.

Which brings us to Copenhagen, where world leaders will gather this week to discuss a response to climate change. This will be another chance for the flat-earth movement to get publicity in otherwise sober American publications. We will hear of targets on emissions that kick the can down the road. And we will read about various schemes to get fuel from grass, algae, wind turbines and solar panels, as we await the magical hydrogen panacea that can't be far behind. Few will discuss the actual efficacy of these technologies, or how much precious crude oil each will consume in its making to produce a disappointing output of new energy. Even fewer will discuss the biggest problem: automobiles. In America, we're determined to not even give most people convenient options other than driving. And, we are told, this "proves" Americans don't want trains and transit. Big coal, the utilities and the auto/sprawl axis are already gearing up to defeat any meaningful climate-change legislation here -- they have watched the health care "debate" and learned well.

Behind the scenes, of course, different world players are going their own ways. China has massive environmental problems, but it is also racing to build bullet trains, subways and corner renewable energy technologies -- even as it uses soft diplomatic and money power to line up oil supplies. Europe is already well ahead on alternatives to the car and a lifestyle that is much more sustainable and scalable than in America. The American "lifestyle" may be "non-negotiable," as both former Vice President Cheney and President Obama agree. But the suburban and exurban spree dependent on single-occupancy car trips to Wal-Marts and office "parks" has been heavily subsidized from the start, was a key driver of the crash, and its costs will be ever more difficult to handle.

While we are mired in debt from sustaining the unsustainable, our competitors are moving ahead. And our rulers can tell us there's no money for research or good schools or good jobs. Those are the breaks. In a nation of 300 million people, what does it matter if 47 million are without health insurance, or 600,000 will be kicked off Aetna's rolls because they're...sick..., or you suffer and die in isolation? We're a Christian nation, a culture of life, the shining city on a hill where the "free market" decides such things.

The president has become a more avid golfer, perhaps the most striking symbol of his utter oneness with the existing power structure. The reliable friend of the bankers, the U.S. Chamber, the defense lobby. Maybe Hillary Clinton would have done better, but the example of her husband's presidency is not encouraging. In any event, this widening gyre of the Great Disruption is not over. Many are living it with real unemployment at 17.5 percent and the cratering middle class. Some, at least, sense it in the greed-driven dismemberment of the wealth -- not only economic but civic and social -- that it took a century to create, and the ongoing theft from posterity. We will see it in the retribution to come for our failure to prepare for discontinuity, a merciless reality, which, as Jim Kunstler has said, doesn't care what our delusional expectations may be. And in the increasing number of people who supported President Obama and now will say, "Why vote?" It is producing an extremely potent and volatile environment. A Republican takeover of Congress in 2010 will only be the beginning of its consequences.